Source of picture: gilesbowkett.blogspot.com
The excellent daily energy and shipping report, The Schork Report said today that the bottom had “fallen out of the entire (energy) complex.”
With the Bulls on the defensive, the authors believe that crude could retreat towards $60/bbl.
Natural gas markets are so oversupplied that prices in the region of $2/mBTU are possible, it adds.
Back in March, the report offered what I think is the best summary of the denial of fundamentals that’s taken over equity and commodity markets recently:
Our concern is this: with each passing session it appears more traders are encouraged to “participate”, hence, the market keeps moving higher. That happens enough times and soon you have $100 oil and Matt Simmons all over the tube alleging the Saudis are doctoring their books and that Petrobras and ExxonMobil didn’t just find all of that oil in Brazil. Then, just like we saw last spring, when the price path of the market decouples from the fundamentals, perception trumps reality and high prices become the justification for higher prices. All because the
smart money [sic] doesn’t want to “miss out”.
Since March, August WTI prices on the NYMEX have rallied from $58.07/bbl to a $73.48/bbl high (+26½%).
Despite some recent headlines pointing to tighter oil supply (for example, more civil unrest in Nigeria and US dollar weakness) the energy-market mood has changed.
Until last week greed seemed to be chasing greed. “The market was going higher…and they (the speculators) went on a buying spree because once again, high prices justified high prices,” wrote Schork on July 6.
So what began as a bear-market rally ended up as a growing consensus – which perhaps too few dared challenge – that the recovery would be V-shaped. Doesn’t this sound an awful lot like the consensus views of decoupling and ever-rising energy costs which prevailed during H1 last year?
What changed last week was a fall in June US consumer confidence and a sharper-than-expected rise in unemployment. The employment-to-population ratio also fell to its worst level since 1984 and average hourly earnings have remained stagnant in two out of the last three months.
An indication of just how far we are away from a consumer-led US recovery is that US gasoline prices fell last week – for the second week in a row. This was the first consecutive weekly decline this year and occurred even though this is the peak driving season.
Chemicals pricing has increased in line with energy costs – as this chart from ICIS pricing shows. Naphtha, ethylene and polyethylene (PE) have been chosen as examples.
Global production cutbacks and delays to Middle East start-ups have also helped sustain a chemicals price rally which began in February.
Efforts are being made to push through further prices rises. European PE and polypropylene producers are, for example, bidding for 10% July increments. These are aimed at recovering higher upstream costs and improving margins.
But the new capacity won’t be delayed forever. China’s import demand has already started to weaken on anticipation by buyers of extra volumes in H2 and resistance to price hikes.
This is bad news for the US and European producers. They have enjoyed strong exports to Asia in Q1 and during some of the second quarter, which has helped them keep domestic markets tight.
As I said last week, chemicals companies that have continued to manage inventories well during this paper-bottomed boom will be in a better position than those who have been taken in by the markets.